India must prepare for surge in elderly population: WHO
India must spend more money and improve public services to prepare for a surge in its elderly population in the coming decades, the country head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
Here are excerpts from a Reuters interview with Nata Menabde:
What is the state of India’s elderly population? “The percentage of elderly is growing very very fast, especially in India and in Southeast Asia also. The projections are that we will have between 12-13 percent of elderly as part of entire population by the year 2025, and that we’re going to reach some 17 percent of the population being elderly by 2050. Now that is every fifth Indian being elderly, which is going to be a very different society as a whole which needs to be seriously taken into consideration.” “There’s no surprise for any one that generally healthcare provision in India requires a major improvement and that is very much related to differences of healthcare provision in urban and rural areas.”
On elderly women: “The age dependency is very high in India, and especially in women, who are usually unemployed, less participating in labour market, and more dependent on their spouses. At the same time, women live longer than men, in India as everywhere else in the world, which means that those women who are so dependent on their spouses end up in large numbers living without the spouse to take care of them.”
How much of a challenge will taking care of elderly people present in India compared to other developing countries? “I think these challenges are perhaps not so specific to elderly. I think these are challenges which India faces in general, in terms of providing good quality healthcare services to general population, including elderly obviously. With the high and growing number of elderly, one has to carefully look at the financial security of elderly, which is a very important provision for elderly to live a full life.” “The bigger the group of elderly becomes for India, the more burden will be put on the population in a productive age to take care of those elderly through their incomes and the various obligations that the society puts on the families and the extended families. With India’s economic growth, obviously there are more resources available to make adequate provision for a number of those issues and challenges that India faces. And the government is doing a lot of those. The introduction of integrated programmes for taking care of elderly. There are special healthcare-related programmes, with geriatric services being secured and more available for elderly, but what that requires is really a look and overhaul of the entire health system that is providing those services.” “If you look how the property goes in India. If the man dies, it’s not his spouse who will inherit the property, it will be the next male in the family. So that leaves a lot of disturbances for the elderly females, for example. So these kinds of things need to be changed.”
On India’s health expenditure: “What is absolutely clear (is) that there is a huge need of increasing public expenditure in health. The prime minister of India has publicly made an announcement that they will go from 1.2 percent of GDP into 2.5 during the course of 12th Year Plan. We are strongly supporting that because 80 percent of healthcare costs are borne by people out of pocket, and that obviously leaves those who do not have money disadvantaged and left behind.”
India’s “joint family” system is becoming less prominent. Does that pose its own set of problems? “Of course, it poses, especially because we are now moving to the nuclear family model from the joint, large family model, and that will make elderly less attended by those families in the future. So there will be more demand for all kinds of services for the elderly, and community services also, that will be required, and a lot of investment has to go into dealing with elderly with various disabilities also. And as they will live longer, there will be longer investment required for maintaining those.”
Selling stake in alcohol business – Mallya’s last roll of dice?
It’s always spectacular when things go horribly wrong for the rich and famous.
When Vijay Mallya — the king of good times — launched a high-profile airline in 2005, his primary motive was to use the platform to promote his best-selling Kingfisher beer.
“I can’t advertise my brand. I have to live my brand,” he said then.
Owning an airline was probably far more glamorous than being a liquor baron, particularly in India, where drinking still is a taboo. On top of that, a premium airline in one of the fastest growing economies with business travel growing at an even faster speed would ensure additional revenue and add another feather to Mallya’s cap.
It was a perfect plan. It indeed was moving swiftly as Kingfisher soon occupied over a fifth of India’s traffic and Mallya’s kingdom expanded.
But not all good things stay forever.
After his airline nosedived, he is now said to be mulling selling a stake in his alcohol business to pocket some much-need cash for his ailing carrier.
Sari-clad cheerleaders add Indian touch to IPL franchise
The upcoming session of the Indian Premier League (IPL), India’s glamour-packed cricket tournament, will see a sartorial anomaly come to life — cheerleaders wrapped in saris.
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s IPL team, the Kolkata Knight Riders, has decided to cover their cheerleaders in one of the most traditional Indian outfits — a marked departure from their 2008 wardrobe when a lot of skin, from midriff to thighs, was on display.
All these sari-clad cheerleaders would be “local hires” and will dance to classical Bengali music in between boundaries and fall of wickets. The team management is of the opinion this will help connect with Bengali cricket fans and improve ticket sales.
This is not the first time an IPL team has shunned short skirts and pompoms for a more conservative costume. Last year, the newest addition to the IPL franchise — Pune Warriors — had classical dancers, called ‘cheer queens’ in ethnic clothes. The owners had said these ‘cheer queens’ would showcase India’s rich and diverse culture on an international platform.
But could it be that this change in attire has less to do with a new-found respect for Indian culture, and more with economics? Since the 1920s, some analysts have believed that during times of economic hardships, hemlines drop dramatically. The theory, known as the hemline index, has been put to test recently. In recession-hit 2008, full-length dresses had been in vogue. In 2010, as stock prices rose, mini-skirts made a comeback.
When the IPL burst on the scene in 2008, it was all about big salaries and high TV ratings. The heady cocktail of high-profile team owners, swashbuckling players, scantily dressed foreign cheerleaders and after-match parties had the nation hooked. For a while, that is. Over the last four years, the league’s image has been tarnished by a series of scandals, TV ratings have dropped and team owners are still figuring out how to make the most of their investments.
So, is this switch to the sari a coincidence or does it reflect troubled times in what was called India’s biggest sporting extravaganza? Will shorts and cartwheels make a comeback if the franchise’s fortunes improve, or will the nine-yard fabric triumph?
Budget in a bunker
The leather briefcase that the finance minister holds up for the cameras before he delivers the budget in parliament is one of the most curious hangovers from British colonial times.
But one tradition that gets little attention is the intense secrecy that surrounds the preparation of the budget.
Weeks before the finance bill is presented, finance ministry officials clam up, and refuse to speak in detail about the economy to the media. The basement of the Finance Ministry in the North Block of India’s central government secretariat, which has its own press to print the entire set of budget papers, is declared off limits to people not involved in the exercise a month before the big day.
The employees of the press and other staff and officers are locked in the bowels of North Block for the last seven days so that nothing is leaked. All contact with the outside world is cut off, their mobile phones are taken away and Internet connections shut down. Food is brought to them from outside, they sleep in bunk beds and the only people that are allowed to enter are doctors if someone falls sick.
“This is a part of the security measure put in place to ensure foolproof secrecy for the budget papers, and is part of a practice started in the pre-independence era,” the government’s manual on the budget process says.
One senior official told Reuters that the tradition of secrecy around a document that laid down taxes and spending for the year ahead, has now outlived the purpose it served in a rigidly planned economy.
India’s democratic tempest
By Shashi Tharoor The opinions expressed are his own
April might be the cruellest month, but, for India’s major political parties this year, March was fairly brutal. On March 6, following an American-style “Super Tuesday” of its own, India announced the results of five state assembly elections, which confounded pollsters, surprised pundits, and shook a complacent political establishment.
Nothing went according to script. The Congress party was expected to come to power in Punjab, where chronic “anti-incumbency” has traditionally precluded the re-election of any state government. Instead, the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal won convincingly. By contrast, in the northeastern state of Manipur, Congress was expected to yield ground to critics of its long-serving chief minister, Okram Ibobi Singh, who instead pulled off an overwhelming victory.
In the tourist paradise of Goa, the Congress government expected to be re-elected, but was trounced by a resurgent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Meanwhile, the two parties found themselves neck-and-neck in the hill state of Uttarakhand, with neither claiming a majority, though Congress had been heavily favoured in the polls.
But the greatest surprise was in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh (with a population of 200 million), where 402 legislators were elected to its massive state assembly. The incumbent chief minister, Mayawati, whose Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won an absolute majority last time by forging a “rainbow coalition” composed of her Dalit (formerly “untouchable”) constituency and upper castes, was summarily ousted. Neither of the national parties, however, benefited from the BSP’s demise. Congress limped to the finish line with just 27 seats, and the BJP fared little better. Instead, a local socialist group, the Samajwadi Party, claimed a convincing 221 seats.
What does all of this portend for India? The obvious fear is that the apparent weakening of both major national parties (Congress and the BJP) will lead to political instability. But India takes electoral convulsions in its stride, and the results triggered no turmoil in financial markets. Thanks to the vagaries of the parliamentary system and the country’s sprawling size, elections seem to take place somewhere every six months, and investors and political analysts are rarely perturbed by even the most unpredictable outcomes.
In the short term, some worry that the ruling Congress will be enfeebled by the results, and that India might soon face an early general election, which is not due until 2014. Congress depends on the support of a number of coalition partners, as well as backing from non-government parties like Samajwadi that do not support the BJP-led opposition, to pass the annual budget and survive parliamentary confidence votes. But recent electoral successes for at least two of the regional parties – the Trinamool Congress, which rules West Bengal, and now Samajwadi – have fueled speculation that they might be tempted to bring down the central government in order to emerge stronger after early polls.
It is not good for us ,to pay more ticket charge,he could has increased 1 rupee for whole ticket price,instead of per kilometer,it is going to be a overload on all Indian .
They can take our money as deposited by them(Ministers).
from Swiss Bank to fill Cr 40000gap.
If he(Trivedi) is a good Indian ,then he should think about us not in terms of collecting money by increasing the ticket price.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Beneath the radar, a Russia-Pakistan entente takes shape
Russian PM Putin shakes hands with Pakistan's PM Gillani during their meeting in St.Petersburg
One of the early calls that Vladimir Putin took following his expected victory in the Russian presidential election last weekend was from Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. He congratulated Putin on his success and invited him to visit Islamabad in September which the Russian leader accepted, according to newspaper reports citing an official statement.
It would be the first visit by a Russian head of state to Pakistan which stood on the other side of the Cold War, peaking in its emergence as the staging ground for the U.S. campaign to defeat the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. It's now again the frontline state in America's war against Islamist militants in Afghanistan, but it is a far more conflicted partner than those days of war against the godless communists. So fraught and uncertain is the nature of the relationship with the United States that Pakistan has sought to deepen ties with long-time ally China, but also Russia, the other great power in a dangerously unstable neighbourhood.
Last year Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari made the first official visit to Russia by a Pakistani head of state in 37 years after Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's trip to Moscow. The visit capped a series of exchanges including on the sidelines of a four-way summit that Russia has promoted involving Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, besides Moscow, to discuss regional security. Zardari and outgoing President Dmitri Medvedev have met six times in the past three years, according to a count by an Indian security affairs expert, and last month Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar was in Moscow negotiating an agreement to guide futue ties including Russian investment in the Pakistani economy.
There is always a risk of reading too much into bilateral exchanges that you would expect between two major countries, both nuclear powers with shared interests in the region. Visits alone don't transform ties, and especially ones with a troubled history behind them. And then there is India to be factored in, both for Russia and Pakistan. Moscow has long stood in India's corner from the days of the Cold War to its role as a top weapons supplier to the Indian military, still ahead of the Israelis fast clawing their way into one of the world's most lucrative arms markets.A nuclear-powered submarine has just sailed from Russia to be inducted into the Indian navy - a force-multiplier in the military with the sub's ability to stay beneath waters long and deep and far from home.
And while Islamabad and Moscow are planning a first visit this year, India and Moscow have long held summits each year alternating in the two capitals. Indeed the Hindu quoted Putin as saying last month that Russia was engaging India "full thrust" when a questioner said Russia must engage powers such as India, China and Iran to advance its interests.
@Matrix
A Nation which has no morals or ethics is a dead functional State, a land of zombies. India today is not the India of Gandhi, the great Mahatma who inspired the world for non violence resistance against the occupiers; today it has occupied a vast land which can only be maintained by violation of human rights, military occupation and millions of slave labour( bonded labour as the India labour minister calls it) compelling its citizens to seek employment or assylum in all corners of the world.
Once the so called Talibans get rid rid of the yanks, they are no longer to return to their bunkers, but as I forecasted before, they are going to march through to Baluchistan and seek direct access to the warm waters. No military, neithe Pakistan nor Inian military is going to stop them from retaking the Kashmir, which they once intrude but then the Pakistan military blew it up. The USA is currently preparng the Bagram palace for the arrival of First Amir of Afghan Talibans! Let India prove hat it is mor functional than Pakistan? Pakistan military has already appoited the military Governors for eac Province, naming them as Corps Commanders of Peshawar, Karachi etc., building up cantonments around major cities, reliving the colonial days.
Rex Minor
Is the outraged Indian over-sensitive or culturally prudent?
Protests are as common in India as the ‘Singh’ surname in the national hockey team.
On the face of it, it’s one indicator of a free society where every citizen can get his voice heard. But agitations like the recent one against a film crew for recreating parts of Chandigarh to look like a Pakistani city seem to create an impression of misplaced priorities (and some would say too much free time for the protesters).
Hindu radicals decried the Pakistan link; and not to be left out, a Muslim umbrella body said the movie about the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden showed their religion in a bad light.
Apart from Pakistan and religion, one also has to be careful in making public comments on topics which touch on caste, class, ethnicity, geography and gender.
The straight-talking and self-professed forward-looking chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Mamta Sharma, discovered the gender minefield when she said at a seminar that girls should not be offended if someone calls them ‘sexy’.
Rights activists and politicians slammed her, saying the sexually suggestive word “promotes violence”.
But there are many liberals who defend the right to free speech and artistic freedom. Local artists in Chandigarh defended Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow’s film crew on their right to make a realistic movie set (even if it meant temporarily creating a mini-Pakistan), while the protests against author Salman Rushdie’s scheduled presence at the Jaipur Literary Festival in January was slammed by the media and many literary figures.
What is the point your are trying to make? Indians protest left, right and center. At the drop of a hat. When a Hindu protests, there will be some muslim who will protest the fact that the Hindu is protesting. So on and so forth.
If that is not freedom of speech, what is?
Are you saying that India does not have freedom of speech because somebody will protest if an Indian speaks his or her mind? The second person protesting against the first person has freedom of speech too!
So what exactly are you trying to say here?
from Photographers Blog:
Privileged witness to the start of life
By Vivek Prakash
It's an experience I will never forget. I have no children of my own, but when the day does come, maybe I'll be just a little bit more prepared for it.
I had come a long, long way from my usual cosmopolitan stomping ground of Mumbai, to a place just about as far interior as you can go in India. I was about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Rajasthan border in the state of Madhya Pradesh, in a village of about 700 people. This is very, very small by Indian standards. There were dusty roads that a car could barely fit down, mud houses, a scorching heat during the day which turned to a deep chill at night.
I had many ideas in my head and many questions too - what kind of emotions was I going to experience and witness? Should I be excited, or should I feel like an intruder, given the subject matter I was here to shoot? I had come a long way to shoot this, but now, standing in this little rural community health center with my camera, I felt conflicted.
Well, did you get authorization from Anguri about using her picture? That should help your conscience’s conflict.
Lucas
http://www.pictobank.com/
Assembly Elections 2012: Results Coverage LIVE
Live coverage of election results from Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh.
